Weather radios are used by consumers to scan radio frequencies, such as 162.400-162.550 MHz, which are dedicated for broadcasting weather and other alerts. These dedicated frequencies are not in a range that most conventional radios can receive, and thus a consumer must have a weather radio or other similar device to monitor these broadcasts. Organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) broadcast such alerts to be received by these devices. Current weather radio devices, however, are required to be always on and always listened to in order to be useful. This has reduced the applicability of these devices for the average consumer. Further, the interface for weather radios have made them less than ideal platforms for communicating information. For example, the voice messages are often not particularly useful for those users who are not intimately familiar with the geographic region.